3 SKILL

Ft. Lauderdale, Florida // December 16, 2008

My two feet step on ladder rungs, my hands grab teak rails, and my muscles flex as I rise from the galley into the cockpit. The surrounding marina—buildings, piers, bushes, cranes—is tomb-dark. A transformer hums nearby. Tires on a lone car drum across the seams of the bridge nearly overhead. I can tell my body wants to sleep because my limbs hang with fatigue and my blood refuses to flow. Thoughts creak. Everything feels off, and yet I am thrilled to be awake—like a child defying sleep at a slumber party. Tonight’s journey begins at 01:00 to arrive at the nearest Bahamian island before sunset. We are pointing Wild Hair straight east, into the deep, to a place we’ve never been. We are testing new skills on a trip that promises to be as carefree as a tax audit.

Stretching my back, I notice the air. I always notice the air these days because my skin relishes the tropical moisture. Sweet, spicy scents of nameless things growing and dying at the edge of land and sea fill my lungs. In stark contrast to the winter air currents of my Wisconsin homeland, this gentle breeze compels me to relax my defenses. I find it seductive, like the sparkling eyes and sly smile of a Southern gentleman. My body opens; senses intensify. My nervousness about the trip loosens as I melt into the balmy air.

“Are you ready?” Dave asks, bounding up the companionway. His own jitters electrify the night’s shadows.

“Huh…We’ll see.”

We are virgins tonight, inexperienced sailors making our first Gulf Stream crossing. Caution is warranted. We’re cruising into the Bermuda Triangle and a lot can go wrong. Rogue waves and mini-cyclones—surgically precise fingers of God—can appear from nowhere to sink ships. The vessel might lose a through-hull connection and take on water faster than we can pump and bail. Or we may collide into a shipping container bobbing just below the surface, one spilled from a freighter in a storm. A hole in the boat would sink us in moments. Alternatively, I could misstep and fall overboard; Dave, unawares, might glide away and leave me to watch Wild Hair’s sails, awash in starlight, shrink on the horizon. Eventually, I’d have no choice but to gulp in a salty, liquid grave. Even if he were to see me fall into rolling seas and quickly maneuver for rescue, Dave could easily lose sight of my head, especially at night. These real worries are why, in the last few weeks, we fixed a life raft to Wild Hair’s transom and installed an extra pair of high-capacity pumps. We wear life jackets when sailing offshore and physically attach ourselves to the boat, clipping and unclipping as we move about the deck.

Tonight we will meet the Gulf Stream, part of the North Atlantic Gyre, one of five twists of ocean current and wind stirring the earth’s surface. This Gyre flows west from Africa, splits at the bulge of South America, and moves north into the Caribbean Sea. The strait between Florida and the Bahamas acts as a flume: the broad flow narrows to a mere sixty-two miles and the water’s concentrated energy accelerates to 5.5 miles per hour. Tonight’s challenge is to sail across the Gulf Stream, to bisect the flume.

The term “Gulf Stream” refers to the part of the North Atlantic Gyre that begins at southernmost Florida and tracks north along the East Coast of the United States and Newfoundland. A river in the ocean, the stream creates weather; it carries warmth and saltwater from the equator to Europe. Astronauts can see the flow’s thermal gradients with the naked eye from space.

I am standing barefoot on Wild Hair’s deck in a sleeping marina—a boatyard located miles west of the ocean in the center of urban Fort Lauderdale. I scrunch my toes in the dew and imagine myself kin to early explorers. Juan Ponce de León was the first captain to log his encounter with the Gulf Stream. In 1513, he sailed his south-pointed ship backward for a day because the current was a stronger force than the favorable winds. Years later, Spanish captains used the corridor like a conveyor belt at the airport to speed north. Benjamin Franklin, benefiting from conversations with seafaring captains in both the US and England, was the first to chart the enormity of the current’s influence. It was he who coined the name Gulf Stream.

In modern times, the current’s energy potential lures environmental researchers to its depths. Scientists envision underwater turbines spinning as water moves, generating sustainable power. Others look to the thermal energy potential of the temperature differential between colder deep and warmer surface waters.

At the point where Dave and I will cross, water will move under our hull at thirty-million cubic meters per second. It’s a massive force. I’ve plotted and replotted a course to take in the influence of this phenomenon. It’s tricky. I mapped our departure and arrival points and estimated—given the boat’s speed, time in the current, and sideways velocity of water—the compass heading we must take to arrive on target. Sailboat captains have a more difficult time navigating the stream than power boaters because our ships move more slowly, spend more time in the current, drift farther off course. Because of this, I’m as certain of my course as a drunk walking a white line.

How will liquid Earth feel when the solidity of land within swimming distance disappears? Where will my thoughts stray when my eyes see only water? Popular guidebooks say I’ll know I am in the Gulf Stream when I see changes in bubble patterns on the surface, differences in color as ocean temperatures warm, and an abundance of wildlife—from whales to turtles—catching rides on the conveyor from southern habitats. All that is fine, but I fear a violent ride.

The predominant wind, blowing from north to south, lifts the north-flowing stream into steep, breaking waves. Like petting a cat in the wrong direction, the surface bristles. In the Gulf Stream, an everyday wind can stack waves tall enough to sink a ship. If Wild Hair is struck broadside by a large curl, she may roll over and down.

We’ve done a year’s worth of daytime and overnight coastal sailing, but nothing like this. Our multi-year sabbatical started when we bought the boat in Wilmington, North Carolina, bopped down the coast, and eventually cruised into the harbor at Key West (without the kids). This past summer, we kept Wild Hair at a marina in St. Simons Island, Georgia—north of the hurricane line established by our insurance company. Weeks ago, we sailed south again and Dave and I have been sitting in the marina-boatyard in Fort Lauderdale—the ideal launch pad for a journey to the Bahamas. It’s one thing to skim down the coast, and quite another to point the bow straight into the great unknown and disappear over the horizon.

Aware of the dangers, I monitored weather forecasts for the past several weeks, looking for a window of safe conditions. I listened to crackling broadcasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) detailing wind speed and direction along with wave height and sea swell. Day after day, inhospitable cold fronts consumed the region and forecasters issued small craft advisory warnings. Fellow boaters said wait, be patient, don’t venture into the Gulf Stream in anything but ideal conditions. But I feel pressure to get going.

Our plan is to rendezvous with family for a Christmas celebration in the islands. Eland, Maggie, and my brother and parents will share a historic captain’s home on the beach of Elbow Cay. Dave and I will anchor inside the enclosed harbor of Hope Town, and dinghy to shore to join the family in beach walking, exploring the village, and swimming in the resort’s pool. Everyone will come aboard Wild Hair for day sails and island hops.

All this is good, but there’s an old sailing axiom: true mariners don’t sail on a schedule, because so much lies beyond our control. Oops. We have Christmas as a deadline. Maybe this is why family members are placing bets on whether or not the kids will celebrate their first parent-free holiday.

The ideal weather pattern for traversing the Gulf Stream is two days of gentle, southerly winds (one day for seas to calm and one day to travel). But this is December, and northerly cold fronts are screwing with our plans. At this point, I’ll settle for a minimum of fourteen calm-ish hours with moderate winds from anywhere but north. That should be enough time to journey from our present location, nine miles up Ft. Lauderdale’s New River, to West End, Grand Bahamas Island. The problem is fourteen quiet hours have eluded us until now.

At 01:00, the wind off the coast will be easterly at less than ten knots. Waves should be two feet. We cannot sail east, directly into the breeze, but we can motor our way across. On the other side, the weather will come around and be perfect for scooting the Bahama Banks for the three days it will take to get to Hope Town. But the change in weather will be lousy for any more crossings until sometime after Christmas. This moment is the only window for a safe Gulf Stream crossing before Christmas.

Given this, I’m surprised we are the only people awake; I thought others would be departing tonight for their Bahamian holiday. We’re the only ones awake and moving about. The realization we are alone unsettles my gut. Somewhere in the distance, a train lets loose a lonesome cry.

Our solitude also means there is nobody to help release dock lines as we depart. Our vessel’s directional control in reverse—like the backward control of any sailboat—is supremely limited, especially in a current. On top of that, Wild Hair is squeezed as tight as an egg in a crate between mega-yachts. The most difficult part of the voyage may be leaving the slip.

“What’s the direction and speed of the New River current?” Dave asks as he drops a corner of paper towel into the water. I watch the inch of glowing white drift from mid-ship toward the bow.

“It’s flowing out,” I say, “At maybe…three knots?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Together we try and work out how various forces will push the boat once the ropes let go of pilings: the water is moving in one direction, a breeze nudges opposite, and the spin of Wild Hair’s propeller drags our tail left when we back up. We size up obstacles in our path and think through the best defensive sequence for releasing dock lines. I imagine collisions-to-be and reposition fenders. Dave double-checks the engine fluid levels and belt tensions, and then arms the engine start at the circuit panel below. Sitting at the ship’s wheel, I flip the switch to power the engine starter near the helm. Locusts chirp in the night. The ship’s flag flutters. Scanning the cockpit, I confirm necessary equipment is handy: binoculars, paper charts, winch handles, life vests, rain gear, a flood light, water bottle, log book, flashlight, and pen. Everything is ready. It’s time to go.

I press the electric engine-start button. Silence. I expected the same deep-throated vroom that bellowed just hours ago when we started the engine to confirm the refrigeration was charged and working. But now, there’s no “wannawannawanna” sound of a tired battery struggling to catch, no click of the starter solenoid doing its job. There is only screaming quiet as I push repeatedly on the start button. My mouth hangs agape.

“Well?” Dave asks from the galley through the companionway opening. My left hand takes up the flashlight to illuminate the action of my right, the futility of my effort.

“Shit!” He does an about face toward the bookshelf of repair manuals. I join him in the search below decks, scour trouble-shooting journals, and look for relevant pages.

“Here it is,” he says. “I think we have corrosion on the starter solenoid that’s interrupting the electrical flow from the push button to the engine. Why it picked now to lose connection, I haven’t a clue.”

My partner opens the engine room doors and slithers down the bulkhead to an uncomfortable half-sitting, half-kneeling crouch. I pass him tools from a bank of drawers. He fumbles low in the bilge.

“Yeah,” Dave confirms. “Salt water got in here somehow; or maybe it was just salty air. It’s heavily corroded. Let me have that snarly metal file, would you?” I pass him the instrument and he shifts position to get a better angle, grunting. In rhythm with the metal scratching he complains, “I retired from surgery so I didn’t have to operate in the middle of the night!”

My sweet husband. A marriage, raising two children, and managing separate careers left us unprepared for the intensity of cohabitation in forty-five feet of living space, 24/7, for months on end. His steady kindness and support nourished our children and me for decades. But time on a sailboat makes plain stark differences in our characters.

He was captain of an operating room for twenty years. Now Dave hands out orders with the ease of a waitress schooling a fry cook. Sometimes the frequent, unconscious telling-me-what-to-do peeves me. I remind him our sailing resumes are the same. I ran a business and have my own ideas. There are multiple ways of doing things and we approach challenges differently.

The way I understand it, Dave tends toward a reductionist method of problem solving: he takes a thing apart to understand the component pieces, how the bits works. I see emergence at work and accept that a thing cannot be understood by dissection alone, because elements interact in unexpected ways. As unrelated things combine, creation bursts forth with something altogether different than the parts—like when two atoms of hydrogen combine with one atom of oxygen to make water. Water? As an ancient Sufi teaching says: you think you understand that two and two makes four, but you understand nothing until you understand “and.”

Maybe the lens of optimist and pessimist is at play, too. After all, it is said the ideal sailing team has one of each—the optimist gets the boat off the pier and the pessimist gets it safely back. But tonight, he gets no argument from me. We team up on the solenoid’s repair because Christmas hangs in the balance.

After giving the connectors a rough polish and smearing sticky electrician’s grease on the works, Dave reconnects wires and uncurls his body. I scramble to the helm. This time, the starter brings the engine to life.

The navigation equipment surrounding the wheel glows. The eight-inch GPS monitor asks if I agree to the terms and conditions of its use and I agree to them all, whatever they are. The VHF radio roars static so my left hand adjusts the squelch as my right hand peels back the stainless dome guarding the compass. The compass disk floats horizontally in its crystal ball of oil, the dial shining red to protect the skipper’s night vision. I pry the cover from the autopilot display and my eyes jerk in a double-take. The unit, which should be glowing green, is dark. I cringe.

“Dave, the autopilot’s dead!” Yesterday the two of us reinstalled the newly varnished cockpit table onto the helm’s grab bar; in the process, we must have guillotined delicate wires feeding the autopilot. This is a blow. Similar to a car’s cruise control (but maintaining direction rather than speed) the auto pilot lightens the strain of driving. Sailors consider the autopilot an extra crewmember. Now, ours is dead. Hand steering for ten weeks in the Bahamas will be inconvenient and tiring, but it is not a justification to stay. Besides, old-school driving with hands upon the wheel will give us a feel for the boat in all sorts of conditions and make us better sailors.

Weeks ago, I maneuvered Wild Hair into the slip; tonight it’s his turn to take her out. I set up a neat little trick with the bow line—running it the length of the boat to attach on the farthest-out piling—so I can maintain control as the boat backs out. Keeping control of the bow, I will push off the splintery post to facilitate the nose turning against the current.

At precisely 01:00, the engine is warm, Dave signals he is ready behind the wheel, and I cast off lines.

We guess wrong. My trick with the bow line is ineffectual. Playing the hand we’ve been dealt by the water, wind, and propeller, my partner improvises a looping, ridiculous backward route. The bow refuses to swing clear of the pier, the stern glides beyond control toward the prow of a shiny new yacht. Dave increases the boat’s speed to move more river water across the rudder and gain steerage.

Then he rotates the throttle forward, spins the wheel, and turns in the wrong direction, away from our course. I understand his first priority is gaining distance around our hull from fixed objects. Sometimes using my arms, sometimes using my feet, I fend Wild Hair off stationary pilings and stainless steel rails that jut toward our hull like knights’ lances. It’s an ungraceful contortionist routine. With some speed and room to maneuver, Dave avoids cracking the shells of surrounding mega-yachts as he turns the boat about face. But on the last bend, Wild Hair levers noisily against a proud pier corner. It is a death rattle worthy of an operatic diva. Luckily, there is no lasting damage.

Dave accelerates in the outflowing current. I shake muscles to release tensions from physical battles with fixed things and fill my lungs with the steamy night. Eucalyptus is fragrant. I’m relieved the worst is behind us now. As Dave drives, I retrieve piles of untidy dock lines, make neat loops, and secure the ropes on the transom rail for our Bahamian arrival. The inflatable life jacket chafes my neck as I move.

This night is creepy. The route is obscure, illuminated only by the occasional glare of sweeping headlights or a random porch bulb. When I drove Wild Hair up river last month, the corridor was as wide and clear as a church isle before the bride. I recall paying only half-attention as I eyed boats and homes at the water’s edge. But now, the corridor is crowded by shapes I cannot name. Shadows abound. Dark water is invisible on a black night so it feels as if we’re slipping through space and the sensation is spooky, disorienting. It’s like floating through a haunted house on Halloween night.

It occurs to me the handheld spotlight will remedy sightlessness and dispel my anxiety. The beam shoots through the gloom to illuminate a dresser mirror inside a mid-century ranch home’s bedroom. My finger jerks from the trigger with the recoil of a cobra. My wrists tilt down to center on the liquid lane. The beam finds our route.

“Is this helping?” I ask, turning my head Dave’s way.

“Yeah, a bit,” he confirms. Looking forward again, I catch the beam passing through a second story window on the opposite shore.

“Crap. This is touchy.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dave says. “We’re nearing the first bridge. Would you ask ’em for an opening?” We’re approaching a lit intersection of street and river, and I shut the ray down.

Yesterday, I telephoned the five bridges on tonight’s route and asked each tender if someone would lift the bridge deck in the middle of the night. If the streets don’t rise, the first twenty-four-foot-high span would snap Wild Hair’s mast like an asparagus stem. Everyone assured me that an exit in the dead of night would be problem-free. I hail the first tender on VHF channel nine—Florida’s bridge frequency.

I anticipate a crackly response: “Roger captain. Why don’t you hang back a bit? It’ll take just a moment to stop traffic and open.” But, there is no reply. I try a second and third time. The radio is mute. Dave eases the throttle to slow our approach.

Here’s an important thing: to maintain steerage, a sailboat must move faster than the surrounding water. If it doesn’t, the boat is no different than a meandering leaf that turns and swirls in eddies. It too will drift from rock to shoal. When Dave cuts Wild Hair’s speed to avoid slamming into the bridge, the outflowing river takes hold of our keel and sweeps us sideways into a bank of pilings. We arrive with a thud.

All right, I think. At least here we are stationary. I consider tossing a line onto a piling but the boat is wedged tight by water pressure. We are safe for the moment.

I climb through the companionway to get to the bookshelf. Coffee mugs hanging beneath the steps clink when I bump one with my foot and set them all to swinging. This time, I’m searching for the bridge phone numbers published in the boating guidebook.

“Oh, yes,” the woman mutters when I phone and tell her our location. “Um, right. Yes! I’m sorry I didn’t hear your call. I, uh, was asleep on the floor downstairs.”

Rrrriiiiiinng—a warning bell shrills as the traffic gates drop. The street cracks in the middle, separates like twin flaps on a giant cardboard box. Wild Hair’s engine powers the ship from the pilings and through the gap. Switching from cell phone to VHF, I say, “Thanks for your service bridge tender. This is sailing vessel Wild Hair and we are clear. Have a good night.”

More silence. Doubt nudges my confidence. Is our radio working, I wonder?

Repeated cell phone and radio calls with the tender uncover the source of the problem: the newly installed VHF radio has two channel nines—one for “weather,” one for “calling.” But knowing this and switching to the proper channel doesn’t help. I must phone and wake each bridge tender en route to the sea. Only the train bridge, which stands open by default, is ready for our passing.

I worry. Ft. Lauderdale is the staging ground for Gulf Stream crossings but Dave and I appear to be the only sailors in the city departing on this last opportunity to get to the Bahamas before Christmas. Have we misjudged the situation? A fleet of travelers would bolster my confidence, but we are alone.

“Why do you think we’re the only ones out tonight?”

Dave shrugs. “Don’t know.” Hand over hand, he spins the wheel through the next river bend. “But you know what they say: every captain makes their own decision. Avoid group think.” He smiles. “So, captain, what’s your decision? Do you think tonight’s the night?”

“Yes,” I smile. “By all accounts, things should be good out there.”

“Then what do we care if everyone else stays home. Besides,” he adds, “I like our plan, too.” His knee nudges mine, bringing a grin to my lips.

After clearing the fourth bridge, we arrive at the place where the New River meets the ICW. Here, the meaning of signposts marking deep water flips; outbound on the river, we took red channel markers on the right and green markers on the left. When we merge with the ICW, the green markers go on the right and the red on the left.

“Heather, that channel marker there…right or left?” my colorblind husband asks. I wasn’t following along on the paper chart. I stand and look desperately for a recognizable landmark.

“Uh, I don’t know!”

“Pick one!” Dave urges. “Uh, right. Take it right.”

Wrong answer. Wild Hair’s keel catches ground and the boat rocks forward to a sluggish stop like a bus breaking sharp in traffic.

This is a disastrous turn of events. We’re stuck in the epicenter of Ft. Lauderdale’s boating industry. At dawn, private and commercial sailboats, fishing boats, trawlers, old-fashioned river queens, jet skis, and mega yachts will fly from their perches, like the swallows of Capistrano, to pass through this junction. The outflowing tide that drew Wild Hair downstream all night will continue to drain. Our boat will tip over on its keel; the mast will scissor toward the water and halt traffic like a gate blocking the street before bridge deck rises. We will be here for hours, apologizing for disrupting commerce and trade. We will miss Christmas.

But Dave has other intentions. He guns the engine in reverse, turns the rudder hard, pushes the throttle into forward and swings the rudder in the opposite direction. Slowly, the rudder walks through the settled muck of urban runoff. The keel plows sludge. City lights illuminate plumes of green-brown slurry stirred by the prop; they erupt like time-lapsed images of cumulous clouds. Dave persists; the boat claws from bondage. Suddenly, Wild Hair is free and moving easily again.

“Hooray, Dave! You saved Christmas!” I lean across jackets and a flashlight to kiss his cheek. Short whiskers in his beard jab my lips.

“I was not about to be stuck there. No way,” he says. “Now I need help with these channel markers.” I grab the paper chart and together we navigate the crossroads and clear the final bridge. At last, we are free from obstacles, pointed to the safety of the deep ocean.

We pause for a moment so I can lift the mainsail and capture a boost of wind power as we motor the distance. Then, Dave turns the bow toward the red and white safe channel marker positioned just outside the Port Everglades entrance. This marks where ocean waters run deep and depth is no longer a concern to ships. I busy myself putting away the spotlight, rain jackets, and other equipment before wave action spills the works. Dave navigates the center of the harbor channel.

“I am so glad to be out of the river,” I say. “We should have popped for a marina near the mouth to avoid all but the last bridge. A quick exit would have been so much easier. I knew it would take a couple hours to navigate, I didn’t realize it would be two hours of terror.”

“Absolutely, next time” Dave confirms. “We had no business undertaking such a technical challenge in a sleep-deprived state. Not to mention, it’s really dark without the moon. We could have gotten into even more trouble!”

Neither of us hears the sécurité radio call, a warning to navigation issued for our benefit.

“Yeah,” I admit, “that was technical. I….” A bright ray sears my retinas and arrests my sentence. My mouth hangs open, hands stop, shoulders turn, eyes widen. A giant ship bears down on us, directly in front of Wild Hair’s bow.

What Dave and I thought was the red and white safety buoy is actually an oncoming freighter. The pilot of the ship probably saw us cruising down the centerline and issued the sécurité on the radio. We didn’t answer or change course, so the crew is buzzing us with a beam of electric daylight to get our attention. Dave spins Wild Hair ninety degrees to starboard, drives full speed to the corridor’s edge, and narrowly avoids a collision.

“Uh, freighter entering Port Everglades,” I stammer into the radio. “This is the outbound sailing vessel, Wild Hair. Uh, we regret getting in your way. Thank you for making your presence known. Wild Hair is standing by on channel one-six.” There is no response.

As we enter the deep ocean, Dave spins up Wild Hair’s radar to spot ships at a distance in the night.

I sit hard on the cockpit cushion and shake my head.

“I can’t believe all the problems we’ve had in so short a time: the mess with the starter solenoid and autopilot, our ridiculous departure leaving the slip, troubles with the radio, bridges refusing to rise, misreading the channel marker and running aground…”

“And don’t forget our obliviousness to the sécurité radio call,” Dave adds. “That’s most frightening of all!”

“How could we be so unskillful? We tried to think of everything. We planned and planned this trip. Dave looks at me without an answer. “We should have done better.” I stew for a moment as I snap the carabiner to my safety harness and tether my body to the boat. I thought leaving the marina, moving downriver, would be uneventful, like our arrival weeks ago. I assumed tonight would be no different.

Hours later, we arrive at the Gulf Stream and it is as powerful a presence as a mountain. I am behind the wheel, eyeing the compass, trying my best to hand-steer the course. Underwater, I imagine a long, tube-shaped aquarium filled with life soaring northward, slick as a Japanese monorail. The humid atmosphere and intense waves tell me we are in the stream, although we can’t see the color change of the warmer water in the inky darkness. The wind shoves us forward at twenty knots, twice the predicted strength. The stream’s horizontal platform lifts into six- and eight-foot spikes, not the promised two-foot waves.

I’m quartering peaks, riding up and over at a slight southward angle, and Wild Hair bucks and twists. The boat is a handful. Besides the up and down, the hull is knocked sideways in a cork-screw action similar to a carnival ride. With no visible horizon, I get seasick and toss my dinner into a saucepan standing by. Temporarily relieved, I steady my breath and relax into the tugs of gravity and motion. I continue steering.

The good news is we’re in the worst of it and we’re safe.

My hands arc in great sweeping motions from the ten-and-two position on the wheel. This counteracts the shove of intense waves by making cables wag the ship’s rudder. Sightless, I take in the cries of wind and water and feel with my whole being a way around and through the fluid earth. In a symbiotic bond, I am fully consumed with the task of seeing with my legs and feet, listening with my gut, speaking with my hands. I am grateful for relatively benign conditions and shudder to imagine worse.

REFLECTIONS ON SKILL

I get it. The difference between navigating known waters in darkness and in light is, well, like the difference between night and day. I took two journeys on the New River—one up to the marina and one down and away—and each time the route was simultaneously different and the same, because the world around me did and didn’t shift. What I failed to realize when preparing to travel the second time was how darkness would alter my sensory perceptions, that important environmental feedback would be missing. The identical route became technically difficult and far more perilous, and this changed the way events played out and the demands on me. The only real opportunity I had to avoid difficulty was to dodge the evening route altogether and start from a place nearer the sea. But here lies the crux of the matter: when things got rough it was on me to dig deep to come up with new and resilient skills.

And this is another one of those wake-up-pay-attention messages from the Great Atlantic Teacher pushing me to circle around to the question on my mind while sailing—how am I to live in a suffering world? An answer: prepare in advance not just for the technological, economic, or political challenge, but also for the spiritual challenge that lies ahead. OK—the idea is simple. But that lesson applied to the reality of climate change lets loose a cascade of additional uncertainties. Is climate change a complete game changer? Has it already altered the context of life? How am I to keep current of changing events as they ebb and flow when the usual sensory inputs are insufficient? How might I effectively deal with peril I can’t see?

Moving through the day—walking to the grocery store, steering the boat, cooking meals, doing laundry—my half-paying-attention-mind automatically assumes life is straightforward. I couldn’t count change when making a purchase if that fact wasn’t at least partly true. And yet, I know in my heart that summers are longer, birds and butterflies are fewer, the forests of my childhood are gone, and more people and cars are on the roads. I can count on my fingers things that have grown taboo in climate concerned circles in recent years: driving gas-guzzling cars, eating a diet heavy in beef and dairy, clear-cutting forests, keeping homes icy in summer and toasty in winter, wasting fresh water. The list could go on. I couldn’t imagine growing up that these actions could accumulate to make Earth downright uninhabitable. But of course, I didn’t know then what I know now. No one really did. The context of life itself has completely transformed.

I, and many others, am trying to pay attention to the shift and prepare for the road ahead. But climate change is a kind of all-encompassing darkness; no one knows exactly what it will be like in advance. Scientists have a few specifics, but the climate science itself is evolving because we’re having difficulty perceiving and measuring. For example: years back, scientists predicted the Gulf Stream would stop flowing. They said something called the thermohaline circulation of the North Atlantic Gyre would shut down and northern Europe would enter a new ice age. But in time, the sophistication of climate models increased. New calculations disagree over whether or not cold fresh water from melting ice sheets would shut down the Gulf Stream and are inconclusive regarding the actual effects of the stream on Europe’s winters.⁸

Given all that we cannot know, how are we to function with skill?

Wild Hair’s exit in the dark from the New River was a nail-biting farce. But the boat’s equipment failures, wrong turns, and sleeping bridge tenders demanded something different from me. I was forced into new levels of resiliency by those struggles. I upped my focus and stayed steady, got creative, and felt appropriately humbled by my mistakes. I worked with the technologies at hand in new ways. Strategies for making progress morphed. Throughout, there was no place for anger or blame and I kept taking responsibility for our safety. Motoring down river, I kept alert and honed my skills under stress. There is no doubt in my mind that meditation and spiritual practice nourished my personal resilience years in advance and prepared me for the trial.

After attending that first meeting with Thich Nhat Hanh in Wisconsin, I kept signing up for more retreats, practicing with him whenever he visited the United States. I even went to his monastery in Bordeaux, France, and sat with him and the community there for weeks on end. Wherever I went I sat on the floor (or occasionally a chair), slept in a bunk bed, ate plant-based food, sang simple songs, helped out with chores to keep the facility running (did things like cleaned the bathrooms, swept the meditation hall, or chopped vegetables), and enjoyed long periods of personal silence. Never did the retreats feel like a vacation because I kept working with a parade of thoughts and emotions that came up. (It did however feel rustic as summer camp without the sports or high jinks.) What kept me coming back was the mind-expanding, how-come-I-never-thought-of-that before insights that either Thay would calmly lay bare or my own insights would expose.

Between retreats, Dave and I practiced meditation and studied Thay’s books with a local group of the Zen Master’s followers in Madison named SnowFlower Sangha. Weekly, the two of us met with this nice bunch of remarkably ordinary folks to do sitting and walking meditation. As a group, we did our best to figure out ancient teachings and apply them to daily living.

At home, I put a four-by-six-foot marker board on the floor of my office. Most days before going to work I’d spend a half-hour meditating in front of it and another half-hour sketching—in blue, red, and green marker—the core Buddhist teachings I was reading about. Again and again the board filled with notes and arrows (lots and lots of arrows because everything seemed so connected). I’d erase it and fill it again. Off the cushion, I moved through my days as if the context surrounding my existence had transformed. I became absorbed into the texture, sound, taste, and feel of experience. I saw ordinary happenings in a new light. Looking deeply, common things held wonder, and often I felt like a baby holding a ring of keys for the first time. My powers of concentration sharpened and intensified. I came to more fully appreciate that my words and actions had direct consequences, so I took greater responsibility for them.

Although my inexperience with the altered reality of night contributed to an evening of blunders on the New River, years of spiritual practice helped me let go of preconceived notions of what should be happening and glued my awareness to moment-to-moment developments. Mindfulness helped me act with skill when things went cockeyed.

Now, during times when I’m off the boat, I use my marker board to track climate disruption—its physical and spiritual causes and conditions. I read and study articles and science reports and sit with the implications. In this way, I open myself to a new reality. As much as I’d like to, I can’t make the genie of global warming go back into the bottle. I have to take responsibility for contributing to it and try to give life to something new.

The invitation is for more of us to build up our muscles of spiritual resilience in advance of immediate danger by practicing mindfulness, developing concentration, making the connection between our actions and their consequences, taking responsibility of our own unskillfulness, and looking moment-by-moment for new and helpful ways of acting. Cultivating a spiritual skillset in advance is the best way I know to prepare for future uncertainties. From experience I know it can be the difference-maker in helping transform in an instant my usual ways when things turn unusual.

Here is a poem I wrote and recite often to enhance my concentration and cultivate spiritual resilience. Each line can be practiced with a group in a call-and-response format.

Senses skewed

Context shifted

There is both same and different in the dark

How can you be

Mindful

Concentrated

Resilient

And mindful some more

Breathing, stepping, never blinking

Every action contains a consequence

Finally, responsibility is born and

Insight becomes the boat to the far, safe shore

Mindful

Concentrated

Resilient

And mindful some more

PORT EVERGLADES, FT. LAUDERDALE